Video Conversions to safeguard original quality

[mn6215]

I want to maintain the quality of family videos that I made over the years so I have purchased a vcr/dvd recorder unit and a dvd burner for my pc. However, I am very confused by the immense amount of information on the subject and don’t know what would be the best route to accomplish my goal. I have some specific questions that I think will guide me in the process and would appreciate any direction to that cover them.

I don't expect an answer to each question. I outlined them so it would be clear what I am after. All I am looking for is for general direction.

1) VCR to DVD conversion: what precautions should I take to keep best quality?

2) From DVD to PC for authoring.
(a) what is best file to convert the DVD into? MPEG2, AVI or WMV

3) Is there any quality loss from converting a camcorder imported "AVI" file to
(a) MPEG2
(b) DVD format
(c) WMV

4) Is there any quality loss from converting a WMV file to
(a) MPEG2
(b) DVD format

5) Is there any quality loss from converting an MPEG2 file to DVD format?

6) Is it best (to preserve quality of DV camcorder) to use a tool that imports from the camcorder and directly exports to DVD format?

Thanks very much for any leads.

Julio Mazzarella
juliomazzarella@hotmail.com

[reboot]

1) VCR to DVD conversion: what precautions should I take to keep best quality?
Record at the highest bitrate/quality setting you have.

2) From DVD to PC for authoring.
(a) what is best file to convert the DVD into? MPEG2, AVI or WMV
MPEG-2 is DVD standard. The others won't work. A DVD is just an mpeg-2 in a different wrapper. You can usually just rip the mpg from the DVD, with no conversion, encoding or whatever.

3) Is there any quality loss from converting a camcorder imported "AVI" file to
(a) MPEG2
(b) DVD format
(c) WMV
Depends on how it's done. Done right, and you can get superb quality, if you capture with the right settings to begin with.

4) Is there any quality loss from converting a WMV file to
(a) MPEG2
(b) DVD format
Yes. WMV sucks, and converting makes it only worse.

5) Is there any quality loss from converting an MPEG2 file to DVD format?
No, a "DVD format" file IS an mpeg-2.

6) Is it best (to preserve quality of DV camcorder) to use a tool that imports from the camcorder and directly exports to DVD format?
Generally no. You should save to the computer in the camera's native DV-AVI format, then edit, encode, author, and burn.

Don't even consider .wmv as a format.

[mn6215]

Jim,

Thank you very much for your answers. It is exactly the kind of direction that I needed to avoid wasting time and money on multiple trials and errors.

Julio